Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry in Search of Towering Inflatable Gorilla

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God’s gift to music, the incomparable Lee “Scratch” Perry, needs your help! Perry is seeking a giant gorilla for his first ever live performance of his legendary Super Ape album at the 5th Annual Dub Champions Festival across the U.S. during September and October of this year. Dub Champions Festival created a Kickstarter for Perry to raise funds for the giant inflatable gorilla and more.

Recorded at the Black Ark and issued as an LP in 1976, Super Ape is considered by many to be the most influential dub album in history. Tunes from the album like “Black Vest,” “Underground,” and Prince Jazzbo’s enigmatic “Croaking Lizard” set the standard for experimental, limit-pushing dub – one that has never been surpassed in the forty years since the album was recorded. Perry’s brilliant work on the album and his later work with The Congos, Max Romeo, Junior Murvin, and The Heptones places Perry among the greatest music producers of the 20th century. His Black Ark sound is so revered that even today music enthusiasts and critics alike are left wondering how Perry did so much with so little, sometimes using farm animals, wild birds, and household tools and utensils to create his now legendary sound.

When not spending time in the studio producing the greatest, most innovative and influential musical recordings since the dawn of time, he spent much of his life hunting, catching and killing vampires and laying waste to all other sources of evil in the world. Who can forget when Perry and Max Romeo put on the iron shirt to “Chase The Devil” out of earth? This is the burden he has borne for the past 80 years as a walking, talking “Dread Lion” who proclaims on Super Ape “Zion’s blood is flowing through my veins / So I and I will never work in vain.” Perry dubbed it ‘pon the riverbank. Perry dubbed it ‘pon the gully bank. And now Perry plan to dub it ‘pon the main stage!

Perry had a spectacular 2014 in which his album Back On The Controls was nominated for a Grammy Award (Perry won the Grammy in 2003 for his album Jamaican E.T.). However, 2015 is looking even better considering his plan to perform his entire Super Ape album on the main stage at Dub Champions 2015. If all goes according to plan, a gigantic inflatable Super Ape will adorn the stage while he conducts what can only be described as THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH. The legend himself, now 80 years young, will perform timeless tunes like “Croaking Lizard,” “Curly Dub,” “Three In One,” “Patience,” and “Dub Along” in front of live audiences backed by the almighty Subatomic Sound System.

Midnight Raver is owner and chief web editor at midnightraverblog.com. A well known and respected writer and blogger within the reggae community, he is also a regular contributor to worldareggae.com and bobmarley.com